Kanban Bowl

A lightweight Kanban board inside VS Code — no account, no cloud, no tracking.

Open the panel via the activity bar icon or press Cmd+Shift+K (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+K (Windows/Linux).

Kanban Bowl screenshot 1 Kanban Bowl screenshot 2

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
`Cmd+Shift+K` / `Ctrl+Shift+K`	Open Kanban Board
`N`	Add new card (when no modal is open)
`Enter`	Submit modal form
`Escape`	Close modal / context menu / clear search

Configuration

Settings are available under Extensions → Kanban Bowl in VS Code Settings.

`kanban-bowl.workspaceBoards`

Type: boolean — Default: true

When enabled, each workspace/project stores its own boards independently. Disable to use a single global board across all projects.

`kanban-bowl.defaultColumns`

Type: array — Default: To Do, Doing, Done

Defines the columns created automatically when adding a new board.

"kanban-bowl.defaultColumns": [
  { "name": "Backlog", "color": "#6366F1" },
  { "name": "In Progress", "color": "#F59E0B" },
  { "name": "Review", "color": "#3B82F6" },
  { "name": "Done", "color": "#22C55E" }
]

Data & Privacy

All data is stored locally in VS Code's built-in extension storage — nothing leaves your machine. No telemetry, no network requests, no third-party dependencies at runtime. VS Code Settings Sync does not sync Kanban Bowl data.

Security notice: Board data is stored as plain text on disk (VS Code does not encrypt extension storage). Do not store passwords, secret keys, or similarly critical credentials in Kanban Bowl.

Building from source

npm install
npm run build

Running in debug mode

Open the project in VS Code
Press F5 — VS Code opens a new Extension Development Host window with the extension loaded
In the new window, click the Kanban Bowl icon in the Activity Bar or press Cmd+Shift+K

Installing as VSIX

npm install -g @vscode/vsce
vsce package
code --install-extension kanban-bowl-1.0.0.vsix

KanbanBowl

Yannick Boog